I would further refine, and perhaps complicate, this discussion!
If one can generalize, I have noticed that American women tend to speak in chest voice regardless of singing fach, and English women tend to speak in head voice, or at least higher in the register. I asked Peter Giles (English countertenor, ct scholar, and teacher of all fachs)about my observation, and he said he has noticed it, too. He further points out that speaking higher is easier on the voice, and he sometimes encourages people to develop that habit to lighten the load on their vocal cords. He says his natural voice is baritone, as is true of many ct's. However, he has tried to cultivate a higher speaking voice which for reasons stated.
Mary Jane Ruhl Alexandria, VA
--- Original Message --- Isabelle Bracamonte <ibracamonte@y...> Wrote on Isabelle Bracamonte <ibracamonte@y...> Wrote on Thu, 7 Dec 2000 10:46:18 -0800 (PST) ------------------ > women speak in chest and then sing in 'head' or > 'falsetto' (as randy believes and i agree). whose > idea WAS this? did this come from women imitating > men singing travesty roles?
I don't think women always spoke in chest voice. If you've ever heard Judith Blegen speak, she speaks in her head voice (and sounds quite silly and girly, to our ears). However, I would bet that women spoke in high, light head voices in the past centuries -- a strong, powerful speaking voice didn't become sexy/attractive until the 20th century. Victorian fiction, for example, is full of references to the sweet, melodic, high, birdlike voices of its heroines and ladies of virtue.
And singing naturally is more comfortable in a female's head voice than in chest. Little girls and toddlers naturally sing to themselves in high trebles -- boys do too, but then men's voices change and break, and women's do not; hence, men must re-learn to sing in their "new" chest voice, but women carry on in head.
They say that your natural, most healthy tone is produced when you unconsciously agree pleasantly with someone -- "Mmmm-hmmmm," or the slightly questioning, "Mmm?" Now, you know that I've told you to do that, so it's going to be influenced by your idea of what your natural range is -- but that exercise, when done truly unconsciously, is used by speech therapists to determine whether you're speaking too low or too high for vocal health. The first time I did that (without preconceived ideas, because I didn't know what it was for) the sound was in my head voice.
So, mike, I dispute the idea that women "naturally" speak and ought to sing in chest voice. I think it's just a 20th-century thing, imposed by cultural ideas, and that the "ideal" women's voice wasn't supposed to be either strong or low in the past centuries... so it was allowed to be heady, its natural state.
Isabelle B.
===== Isabelle Bracamonte San Francisco, CA ibracamonte@y... ibracamonte@y...
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